Mark 12, Jesus is in Jerusalem.
It is the last recorded week of Jesus' life.
And as Jesus is teaching in the city, He will come into Jerusalem during the day.
He will leave and depart the city at night and go back to Bethany.
And He's doing this throughout the days of the feast.
that is leading up to the Passover.
So Jesus is in the temple on one of the days and as he comes in, he drives out the money changers.
He drives out the buyers and the sellers of wares that are there in the temple, especially considering that they had turned, as he states it and points back to the Old Testament
scripture, they had turned the house of God into a den of thieves.
And so as these events occur, the Pharisees and the scribes come to Jesus and they question Him, by whose authority are you doing these things?
And Jesus says, if you'll answer my question, then I'll tell you by whose authority I'm doing these things.
Jesus asked them a question.
What does He ask them?
All right, baptism of John, is it from heaven or from men?
And they, course, forthrightly as knowledgeable scholars of the law answered correctly, right?
Oh, they said, uh we can't tell.
So Jesus said, neither can I tell you by whose authority I do these things.
So Jesus then proceeded to give them a parable of the wicked vine dressers.
They understood immediately that he spoke
concerning them and being individuals who are respectful and retrospective and introspective and thoughtful about their spiritual condition, they immediately decided to
repent of all the wrong that they were doing and correct their lives, right?
No, I don't think so.
Instead, they go away seeking some way to lay hands on Him, but they know if they're going to do that, they've got to lower his stance with the people.
Because if they can't get the people to think of Jesus as something other than a teacher, a rabbi, a prophet, a healer of those who are sick, uh
a great individual, then they're not going to be able to get rid of Jesus.
So the first attempt is the Pharisees and the Herodians there in verse 13 of chapter 12.
They come to Jesus with a question about taxes.
If you want to make people mad, tell them they have to pay their taxes, I guess was their philosophy.
And so
Jesus defeated their questioning and their line of reasoning, so then the Sadducees come and they've got a question for Jesus concerning the resurrection.
And you can tell from the text that this is a question that probably had been, at least in their mind, well thought out.
It had been something that they had used before.
to some success and so they bring it to Jesus and Jesus accuses them of not knowing the power of God nor the scriptures.
So we get to verse 28.
Then one of the scribes came.
What's a scribe?
All right, bookkeeper, a writer, uh specifically in a religious perspective among the Jews, what was the role of the scribe?
Yes.
Their uh role was the same that you might use if you hit copy and paste on a document that happens to contain the Bible.
uh They were those who were schooled and educated to be able to copy, specifically the Scriptures, but in general any legal document or anything like that, but specifically the
law, they were schooled and educated to be able to copy it
identical to the original.
So what they would do is, and this was an educational process that existed going all the way back hundreds of years, uh they had formulated a process whereby every single sheet of
a scroll, let's say you were copying the scroll of Isaiah,
uh you would know how many lines there were going to be in the entire scroll.
You would know how many rows of letters there were going to be in the entire scroll.
Now, in Hebrew, at that point in time, there were no lowercase letters and uppercase letters.
There also were no spaces between the words.
So you think in your mind of a paragraph and, all right, here's one paragraph and another paragraph, that's not the way
a scroll was, that's not the way the Hebrew language was written, that's not even how Greek was written, they would know, and the entire scroll would be filled with letters all
the way to both sides, all the way down, and they would know exactly where every single letter belonged on the scroll.
So that they could know that they had copied the Word of God to perfection.
And if there was any question about
how they copied it, they used a process whereby they would have a footnote or a notation there above the letter if there was some question either in their original source text, so
copying from one to another, maybe the letters or the ink had been smudged, maybe the source was imperfect.
And so they would leave a notation to indicate that they were uncertain in some way, shape, form about the spelling of a word or the thing that would go in that text.
These individuals, in order to facilitate their job, memorized the text that they copied so that they would know down to the very position of the letter.
on the scroll where it was and that it was accurate.
That was a scribe.
So the scribe comes having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, which is the first commandment of all?
So here's someone whose job it is to know the letter of the law.
literally, to know the exact text of the law.
But it wasn't necessarily their job to interpret the law.
It was their job to know it inside and out.
So the scribe comes to Jesus and asks the question, which is the first commandment of all?
Jesus answered, the first of all the commandments is here.
O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Now, before we get into the answer, let me ask a question.
Is Jesus answering which was the first commandment given in order?
No.
As a matter of fact, it's quite clear from Jesus's answer that Jesus knows that's not what the scribe is asking.
The scribe isn't coming to Jesus asking, I gotta write this down uh later, so can you tell me which one comes first?
That's not the question.
The reason why that's honestly quite important to realize is some will argue oh
that anytime you see the text of scripture say that something is the first, let's say for instance that Christ is the firstborn from the dead, well then that must mean that they
are the first in order.
Except Jesus knows here that the question is not about the order the commandments come in.
Rather the question is about what?
Correct.
The first in preeminence, the first in importance, the first in significance, not the first in order.
What was the first commandment given in the law in order to the Israelite nation?
Go back to Exodus chapter 19.
Thank
actually chapter 20 verse 1, and God spoke all these words saying, am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, you shall have no
other gods before me.
There's the first commandment in order if you were to think of it from the giving of the law.
You have in Exodus chapter 20 the giving of the Ten Commandments.
Now those aren't the only ten laws, those aren't the only ten commandments.
If you were to take the Jewish counting of things, there's 613 laws or ordinances in the Old Testament.
And these are the first ten.
But when this scribe comes to Jesus, he's not asking, which one do I put first in the 613?
He's asking,
which is the most important of the 613.
And so Jesus answers from the text of Deuteronomy in Deuteronomy chapter six.
Moses says he delivers the law a second time to the second generation that came out of Egypt.
He addresses the people and he calls upon them to listen.
He calls upon them to pay attention.
He says,
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
He is singular.
He is preeminent above everything.
There is not another God comparable, superior, or even categorized with Jehovah.
The LORD our God is one and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
This is the first commandment, Jesus says.
Jesus identifies what is the single fundamental most important commandment and He does it as He's being asked by this scribe but Jesus doesn't end there.
Jesus continues and says, and the second like it is this, you shall love your neighbor
as yourself.
This commandment doesn't come from Deuteronomy.
This commandment isn't in chapter 6 verse 5.
Rather, this commandment comes from Leviticus chapter 19.
And Jesus says, first commandment is, love the Lord your God because he is singular in nature, because there is no one like him, because there is no other God before him.
You ought to love him like you love nothing else.
You ought to adore him like you adore nothing else.
You ought to serve Him like you serve nothing else.
and you need to love your neighbor as yourself.
seem to be two pretty fundamental commandments, right?
When you look at the Ten Commandments and you begin to analyze their message behind them, you come to realize that the Ten Commandments are split into two categories.
The first ones of the Ten Commandments are focused on, am God, you are my people, and you should do these things.
because you love me.
And the second half of the Ten Commandments are focused on because of who I am and because of your love for me, this is how you are to treat other people.
And this is how your relationships are to be towards others.
So back behind even the Ten Commandments are these two commandments.
So Jesus
answers and says there is no other commandment greater than these.
So if these are the greatest commandments, does that mean that for an Israelite, if they could just check off these two boxes, they're good, they're done, they don't have to do
anything else?
Well, technically yes.
if you understood it the way Jesus said.
In another passage recording this answer, Jesus will further state that on these two hang all the law and the prophets.
In other words, Jesus is saying if you're going to keep these two commandments, you can't leave anything else out.
If you're going to actually obey the command to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and all your mind, you're not going to
neglect His laws, His commandments, His ordinances.
You're not going to say, know what, I'm going to do that, I'm going love Him, I'm just not going to do all these other things.
And if you're going to love your neighbor as yourself, you're not going to abuse your neighbor, you're not going to mistreat your neighbor, you're not going to defraud your
neighbor, you're not going to covet your neighbor's wife or house or possessions or things.
You're not going to do those things.
Why?
Because you're treating them the way you want to be treated.
If someone actually kept these two commandments, they'd keep all the other 611.
because those commandments either pertain to how they obey God or how they treat one another.
So yes, technically, if somebody checked these two off and said, I've done these two, then they're good.
But is that how people actually think about it?
No, generally people think about it from the perspective of, hey, I love God.
I don't really do everything He tells me to do.
I'm not really too keen on everything that He commanded in His word.
There are some of those laws and things that He said that I'm pretty sure are open to interpretation.
but in general I love God.
I don't worship Him that often and if I've got something else going on I'm probably not going to assemble with His people but I love God.
And then they go, well, yeah, I like the people who like me.
I like the people who are from my culture and my country and I even like some of the people from other cultures so long as I get along with them pretty good.
Turn back to Matthew chapter 5.
you
Jesus as he spoke concerning this commandment and others like it said in Matthew chapter 5 verse 43, have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
Now some of the texts of the New Testament in English the way the publishers do them and the translators do them
You'll see some of the words are italicized and some of them are normal straight up and down letters.
uh There's one of two things that the italics means depending upon the translation.
It generally tells you in the preface which one it is.
Either the italics can mean that it's a word supplied or a phrase supplied by the translators.
to help you understand it, but the word wasn't in the original text.
That's how some of them do italics.
And so the translator is telling you, oh, well, there's only one word here in the Greek, but it's five words in the English if you actually interpret it properly, translate it
properly.
And then other texts, for instance, the New King James, generally speaking, they don't use italics that way to identify words not in the original.
they use italics to point out where quotations are coming from the Old Testament.
So if you were to look, for instance, in my copy of the Bible, you would find, you have heard that it was said, and then in italics, you shall love your neighbor, because Jesus
is quoting Leviticus chapter 19.
But then when you get to the and, it goes back to regular case, because he's not quoting the Old Testament anymore.
The you have heard it said,
was this is how they've taken the Old Testament and manipulated it and this is what they're teaching you.
So now he's quoting the teachers of the day.
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
Jesus says, I know what you've been taught.
I know what you've been told the scriptures say.
But he says, verse 44,
but I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of
your Father in heaven.
For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, he sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?
Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brethren only, what do you more than others?
Do not even the tax collectors do so?
Therefore you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
When Jesus interprets the message of the command, love your neighbor as yourself.
He does not interpret it to mean love those who love you, love the neighbor who you like.
As a matter of fact, he says, that's what you've been taught it means.
That's not what God meant.
Jesus rather applies the teaching of Leviticus 19 to mean love your enemies who mistreat you.
who persecute you, who do despicable things against you, because that's what God does.
It's one thing to say, oh yeah, I love God and I love others.
It's another thing to challenge ourselves to ask, do I really demonstrate the love of God to those who hate me?
Do I demonstrate the love of God to those who speak evil of me?
Or do I rather demonstrate the teaching of the Jewish elders that I can love those who love me and hate those who hate me?
them, I mean be nice to them, I'm keeping close to fire up on their head.
Right.
But I mean, that's just go try it hand in hand.
It's hard.
very much is hard.
It very much is hard.
You know, it's easy in concept.
It's a whole other thing in application.
It's a whole other thing in the midst of being tormented by someone who hates you.
But imagine, imagine if Jesus had taught his disciples to do what the Jews had taught, the Jewish leaders had taught the Jews to do.
Imagine if his disciples had been taught to lay in wait to exact vengeance on those who hate them.
And imagine if those first century Christians had known that that Saul of Tarsus was headed to Damascus and if they could just lie and wait for their enemy, they could take
care of that guy before he got to Damascus to do them all harm.
What if God and Christ had taught Christ's disciples to act like the world acts?
I don't know, we'd be missing half the New Testament, wouldn't we?
There is someone who was waiting for Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, but it wasn't the Christians.
It was Christ.
And while Christ admittedly made it clear to Saul that he was going to endure many things as a result of the testimony that he would give on behalf of Christ.
He wasn't waiting there because he hated Saul.
He was waiting there because he loved Saul and loved all those who Saul would teach and preach to.
When we allow the world to manipulate our Christianity into something that is about national pride.
When we allow the world to manipulate our Christianity into something that is about prominence.
When we allow the world to manipulate our Christianity into something that is about one culture or another.
When we allow the world to say, know what, everybody who's Muslim is somebody who just needs to be put away or done away with.
Why?
Because they believe different than you, and they hate you, so you should kill them before they kill you.
when we allow the world and its teachers to usurp the message of Christ.
we'll find we can no longer relate to the message of Christ.
Jesus looked at a scribe who was trying to use the law to discredit a teacher of the law so that they could abuse the law to kill a teacher of the law.
and said, if you understood what the law said, you would love your enemy.
and that if you can't do that, you're no better than the person who disregards everything the law says for their own personal gain and their own personal profit.
if tomorrow.
There was no United States of America and the entire globe was ruled by jihadists.
Do know what Christians should be doing?
not taking up arms converting jihadists into Christians.
And when we misplace our allegiance from Christ and God to political figures and pundits.
we destroy the value of the Scripture.
Jesus looks at a scribe who knew the law down to the position of the letter.
and says the first thing you need to evaluate from the law is do you love God?
And the second thing is, do you love your enemies?
So the scribe said to him, verse 32, well said, teacher.
ah When somebody is thought through how they're trying to manipulate a situation, they've got multiple tiers that they're going to try and use if they've played this chess game
long enough.
And so, this scribe's not phased by this.
This probably wasn't a new answer from the Old Testament.
So he says, well said, teacher.
You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He.
And to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding, with all the soul and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is more than all the burnt
offerings and sacrifices.
Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God.
But after that no one dared to question him.
The scribe replies to him with this declaration that these two things that he highlighted are of greater significance to God than all the sacrifices, than all the ordinances, than
all the burnt offerings.
And he's speaking the truth.
But elsewhere where Jesus is asked this question by a lawyer, the lawyer says, but who is my neighbor?
Jesus will instruct the lawyer concerning who his neighbor is.
What illustration does he give?
The Good Smairn.
He describes a man who goes from Jerusalem to Jericho.
And as he's going from Jerusalem to Jericho, he's fallen upon by thieves.
And they take him and they beat him and they leave him half dead and naked, and they take everything that he has.
And so, as he's laying there, a priest comes by.
was the priest do.
goes the other side of the road.
Now the man who's injured isn't a Samaritan, he isn't a Gentile, he's a Jew.
He's the brother in blood of the priest.
But the priest does nothing.
So then the Levite comes by.
What does the Levite do?
Passes by on the other side of the road.
Now, some have suggested, probably appropriately so, for the priest, if they were to touch someone who had been injured and blood was all over them and they had been beaten, then
they would be considered unclean and they could no longer serve for a period of days through a period of cleansing, according to the law.
they can no longer serve in their function in the temple.
So perhaps the priest is on his way to the temple and if he touches the man, if he helps the man, he can't serve.
Of course, the same laws and ordinances applied not just to the priest, but also to someone bringing a sacrifice.
Maybe the Levite was going to aid in the work of the temple or maybe he was taking a sacrifice to God in Jerusalem.
And so if he touches him, now he's unclean.
Now he can't take a sacrifice.
we can think of all sorts of reasons why we don't do what God says.
But Jesus describes a third man, and he's a Samaritan.
And as he sees the man laying on the side of the road, he goes, he takes him, he bandages him, he puts him on his own donkey, and then he takes him to the inn.
He delivers him to the innkeeper and says, you take care of him.
When I return, I will pay for anything that he needs.
And he actually helps the person who was a Jew.
Now, Jews detested Samaritans.
You can see a picture of that when, and the Jews detested the Samaritans, quite often the Samaritans detested the Jews.
The woman at the well in Samaria who was the Samaritan was surprised that a Jew even spoke to her because of how the Jews felt concerning the Samaritans.
Yet this Samaritan,
not only takes of his time, not only takes of his energy, not only takes of his effort, not only takes of his own donkey, but of his own funds to help the man who probably,
historically, or at least culturally, despised him.
And Jesus asks a question, who was the neighbor?
then Jesus says, go and do that likewise.
We need to comprehend when it comes to what Christ teaches about the law.
when we understand what God is teaching us about Scripture.
that we'll always be able to come up with a scenario where we ought to be able in our minds to justify not keeping the law.
whether it be in an interpersonal relationship, whether it be in a congregational relationship, whether it be in a family relationship, whether it be in a work
relationship, whether it be in a school relationship, whether it be in a cultural relationship or an international relationship, there'll be some reason why we don't have
to keep the law of God.
And the Jews were experts at finding ways to wiggle out of keeping the law.
you go back to Mark chapter 7.
you
Mark chapter 7 verse 1 we read, the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him having come from Jerusalem.
Now remember who was asking the question about the greatest commandment in the law?
It was a scribe.
Now here are some of the scribes and some of Pharisees coming to Jesus from Jerusalem and when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is with unwashed hands,
they found fault.
For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders.
When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash, and there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper
vessels, and couches.
Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?
He answered and said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men."
Jesus identifies that here they are standing in judgment against His disciples for not keeping the traditions of the elders when they themselves were guilty of counteracting the
very laws of God.
And Jesus is going to give them an example.
He says, for laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups and many other such things you do.
all too well.
reject the commandment of God that you may keep your traditions.
For Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.
But you say, if a man says to his father or mother, whatever profit you might have received from me is corbin, that is a gift to God, then you no longer let him do anything
for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your traditions which you have handed down.
and many such things you do.
Jesus looks at this scribe and these scribes and Pharisees here in this text.
indicates to them, yes, you've handed down the Word of God, but you've also handed down your traditions to counteract the Word of God.
And you've taught people your traditions instead of the Word of God.
You've taught them that they can get around the Word of God through the religious teachings of men.
Now here's a scribe who says, Jesus, teacher, you have well spoken the truth.
And you'll notice Jesus says, you are not far from the kingdom of God.
But is there any indication that the scribe decides to get any closer to the kingdom of God?
It is not enough.
to be religiously sincere.
while disregarding the Word of God.
it is insufficient to be religious while disregarding the Word of God.
because ultimately it comes down to this.
Do you love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind?
Which means you're going to do what he says.
or not.
no one dared to question him anymore.
Jesus answered and said while He taught in the temple, how is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the Son of David?
uh You might think, well, you know what?
This scribe, he was on the right track.
Clearly, he was sincere, but he held allegiance to a group.
Above is God.
He held allegiance to the scribes and the school and the order that he belonged to above God.
So when it came to choosing between obeying the law and staying with the scribes.
He did what many do, and He traded His God for His tribe.
We can't do that.
Does that mean we need to uh go out and throw off all citizenship and not belong to any country and be our own little unique group inside of the world of...
No.
It means at any point where allegiance to a flag means betrayal of God.
We hold allegiance to God.
means any time that allegiance to God means denial of a law that is passed by a group of individuals who claim to have authority but their authority is derived from God, we hold
allegiance to God.
It means that when we're commanded to do that which God commands us not to do, we hold allegiance to God.
It means when the law says you can do something that God says you can't do, you hold allegiance to God.
It means that when religious teachers tell you, I know that's what the text says, but that's not what it means.
You dismiss the teacher and you hold allegiance to God.
the scribes.
would memorize the very position of a letter in the text and dedicate their entire lives to the skill of copying that which they were unwilling to obey.
shame on us if we do the same thing.
Thank you for your attention.